Critics have compared her work to that of Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, but J. California Cooper has a warm, witty style that’s definitely her own. Each of her short stories is a gem of downhome wisdom, polished with a bit of gossip, some heartbreak, and lots of humor.

Life Is Short but Wide

Like the small towns J. California Cooper has so vividly portrayed in her previous novels and story collections, Wideland, Oklahoma, is home to ordinary Americans struggling to raise families, eke out a living, and fulfill their dreams. In the early 20th century, Irene and Val fall in love in Wideland. While carving out a home for themselves, they also allow neighbors Bertha and Joseph to build a house and live on their land.

Bailey's Café

Welcome to Bailey's Café, the most mythically real diner you've ever walked into. Presided over by Bailey and his helpmate, Nadine, it is a magnet that draws a wide variety of the "colored" people of 1948, each with a story to tell.

The Darkest Child

Delores Phillips' heart-rending debut novel is set in 1950s Georgia where most of Rozelle Quinn's 10 children can pass as white. Her brightest child, Tangy Mae, however, has the darkest skin of them all, and she longs to continue her education. But Rozelle thinks it's time for 13-year-old Tangy Mae to follow in her own footsteps and earn money "cleaning for whites" and bedding men at the "Farmhouse."

The Ultimate Betrayal: A Reverend Curtis Black Novel, Book 12

It's been four years since 28-year-old Alicia Black, daughter of Reverend Curtis Black, divorced her second husband, the most womanizing and corrupt man she has ever known. Since then, Alicia has been dating her first husband, Phillip Sullivan, a wonderfully kind and true man of God whom she'd hurt terribly by cheating on him. Alicia has worked hard to prove herself worthy of his trust once more, and when he asks her to marry him again, she couldn't be happier.

God Help the Child: A Novel

Spare and unsparing, God Help the Child - the first novel by Toni Morrison to be set in our current moment - weaves a tale about the way the sufferings of childhood can shape and misshape the life of the adult.

Who Asked You? opens as Trinetta leaves her two young sons with her mother, Betty Jean, and promptly disappears. BJ, a trademark McMillan heroine, already has her hands full dealing with her other adult children, two opinionated sisters, an ill husband, and her own postponed dreams - all while holding down a job as a hotel maid. Her son Dexter is about to be paroled from prison; Quentin, the family success, can't be bothered to lend a hand; and taking care of two lively grandsons is the last thing BJ thinks she needs.

The Sacrifice: A Novel

When a 14-year-old girl is the alleged victim of a terrible act of racial violence, the incident shocks and galvanizes her community, exacerbating the racial tension that has been simmering in this New Jersey town for decades. In this magisterial work of fiction, Joyce Carol Oates explores the uneasy fault lines in a racially troubled society. In such a tense, charged atmosphere, Oates reveals that there must always be a sacrifice - of innocence, truth, trust, and, ultimately, of lives.

Every Tongue Got to Confess

Every Tongue Got to Confess is an extensive volume of African American folklore that Zora Neale Hurston collected on her travels through the Gulf States in the late 1920s. The bittersweet and often hilarious tale, which range from longer narratives about God, the Devil, white folk, and mistaken identity to witty one-liners, reveal attitudes about faith, love, family, slavery, race, and community.

Things I Should Have Told My Daughter: Lies, Lessons, & Love Affairs

In this inspiring memoir, the award-winning playwright and best-selling author of What Looks like Crazy on an Ordinary Day reminisces on the art of juggling marriage, motherhood, and politics while working to become a successful writer. In addition to being one of the most popular living playwrights in America, Pearl Cleage is a best-selling author with an Oprah Book Club pick and multiple awards to her credit. But there was a time when such stellar success seemed like a dream.

The Upper Room

Nationally best-selling author Mary Monroe createsan unforgettable cast of characters in The Upper Room. Mama Ruby stole her best friend's baby girl, ran off to Florida, and raised her as her own. Maureen is the center of Mama Ruby's world, and she will do anything to protect her and their life together. Now Maureen wants to know what the rest of the world is like. She is determined to find out, but escaping Mama Ruby won't be easy.

Blues Dancing

During the 1970s, Verdi’s relationship with street-smart Johnson leads her to heroin and the brink of destruction. Rescued by a conservative professor willing to give up everything for her, she lives a quiet, comfortable life for 20 years--until Johnson returns to re-ignite old passions. Pulled uncontrollably toward the reckless appetites of her youth, Verdi struggles to understand her desires and to decide where she wants life to take her next.

Saint Monkey: A Novel

Fourteen-year-old Audrey Martin, with her Poindexter glasses and her head humming the 3/4 meter of gospel music, knows she'll never get out of Kentucky - but when her fingers touch the piano keys, the whole church trembles. Her best friend, Caroline, daydreams about Hollywood stardom, but both girls feel destined to languish in a slow-moving stopover town in Montgomery County. That is, until chance intervenes and a booking agent offers Audrey a ticket to join the booming jazz scene in Harlem.

The Banks Sisters

Meet the Banks sisters - Simone, Bunny, Tallhya, and Ginger. The four beauties are living under the same roof by force, but they can't stand each other. Their only common denominator is their loving grandmother, Me-Ma. When she's not at work trying to make ends meet, she's home with her girls, trying to keep them from killing each other.

What You Owe Me

New to Los Angeles, Hosanna Clark, a farm worker from Texas, befriends Holocaust survivor Gilda Rosenstein. Together they build a cosmetics company and a deep friendship. Then Gilda disappears, taking with her the company's assets. The loss leaves Hosanna financially ruined and emotionally damaged. Years later, after her death, Hosanna's daughter will look to collect the debt Gilda owes.

Forty Acres

Martin Grey, a smart, talented black lawyer working out of a storefront in Queens, becomes friendly with a group of some of the most powerful, wealthy, and esteemed black men in America. He's dazzled by what they've accomplished, and they seem to think he has the potential to be as successful as they are. They invite him for a weekend away from it all - no wives, no cell phones, no talk of business. But far from home and cut off from everyone he loves, he discovers a disturbing secret that challenges some of his deepest convictions.

Vivid

It's 1876 and Dr. Viveca Lancaster is frustrated by the limits placed upon female physicians of color. When she is offered the chance to set up a practice in the small all-black community of Grayson Grove, Michigan, she leaves her California home and heads east. The very determined Viveca knows all about fighting for her rights. But she may need more than determination to face down the distractingly handsome Nate Grayson, the Grove's bull-headed mayor.

Family of Lies

Growing up poor in Texas, Vera Lomax used every gold-digging trick in the book to land a rich husband. Now living in the lap of luxury in San Francisco, her only job is to fawn over her much-older husband, so it's been easy for her to balance a life of shopping and affairs with younger men with a major secret: the 16-year bribery of one of her husband's mistresses to keep her pregnancy under wraps. Vera figures that a little hush money every month will ensure her husband's fortune is hers alone....

And Sometimes I Wonder About You: A Leonid McGill Mystery

In the fifth Leonid McGill novel, Leonid finds himself in an unusual pickle of trying to balance his cases with his chaotic personal life. Leonid's father is still out there somewhere, and his wife is in an uptown sanitarium trying to recover from the deep depression that led to her attempted suicide in the previous novel. His wife's condition has put a damper on his affair with Aura Ullman, his girlfriend.

Publisher's Summary

Critics have compared her work to that of Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, but J. California Cooper has a warm, witty style that’s definitely her own. Each of her short stories is a gem of downhome wisdom, polished with a bit of gossip, some heartbreak, and lots of humor.

In "Funny Valentines" a "simple" woman draws one heart on Valentine’s Day and divides it among the people she loves, until all but one of them lies in the cemetery. "Living" portrays a man in midlife crisis who leaves his loving wife and pleasant country home for a taste of high city living and returns with a new perspective on life. "Spooks" is the tongue-in-cheek tale of a man who masquerades as a ghost in order to outsmart an unscrupulous suitor and win the heart of a vulnerable widow.

Sometimes sad, sometimes funny, and always touching, J. California Cooper’s characters enlighten us and enrich us as they find love in unlikely places. The warm narrations will give listeners a sense of chatting with nosy but well-meaning neighbors over the back fence.

First, J. California Cooper is one of my favorites but somehow these stories, half of them were not that interesting. I almost felt like I was reading about the same people. Dont get me wrong, I had my favorites, and it could have been that one particuliar narrator whose shouting voice grated my nerves! It could be that the stories I was least fond of were the ones with this particuliar narrator. If you listen to the book, you will know who I am referring too!

All. Each character comes with their own story. The read should take each story as it's own lesson and not try to make it more.

Have you listened to any of the narrators’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I have not listened to other performances by this narrator, however, the narrator was perfect for this book. It almost felt like I was sitting with my grandmother as she told me these stories.

If you could take any character from Homemade Love out to dinner, who would it be and why?

Not sure about dinner, but I would love to talk with each of them.

Any additional comments?

This is a great book for a reader that likes to hear about unabridged life. There are ups and downs. The stories do not always happy endings. However, there are typically lessons learned and /or peace found; which makes the stories more real.

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